Cleveland Browns: Ray Horton still talks a good game

Jul 26, 2013; Berea, OH, USA; Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton watches his defense during training camp at the Cleveland Browns Training Facility. Mandatory Credit: Ron Schwane-USA TODAY Sports /

Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton is back to run the defense again. Will this time be different?

Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton made his first media appearance since returning to town and you have to give the man credit as he talks the best defensive game this side of Rob Ryan.

“When you watched the Super Bowl and the AFC Championship Game, it was a factor of big men who could run, coming around that edge, and then also it’s little guys who can get them on the field,” Horton said. “Until they change the rules or tweak the rules a little bit, it’s still NFL football, and you’ve got to either get the ball or get the guy with the ball on the ground.

“We’re going to preach that from day one. We’re going to try to pressure the quarterback. As coach Hue (Jackson) has mentioned more than once, we do, we want to be suffocating. When we are in this division on the defensive side of the ball, you have to be. This is a tough, big-man division. You better be ready to play football on Sunday or you’re going to be embarrassed.”

Those are great soundbites, but they are also ones that we heard in 2013 when Horton last ran the Browns defense. That season the Browns finished ninth in the league in total defense, the team’s best finish since 1994 and a big jump from the previous season when the Browns were 23rd. The defense held opposing rushers to 3.9 yards per carry, the team’s best effort in 18 years. (By comparison the Browns were at 4.5 yards per carry in 2015).

“Are we going to win our division this year? I don’t know if we are or not, but we are going to give them hell.” – Defensive coordinator Ray Horton

More importantly, however, the Browns also gave up 25.4 points per game with Horton calling the shots, including a league-high 145 fourth-quarter points. That trend continued once Horton moved on as the defensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans, who gave up 26.4 points per game in 2015.

That seems like something that will be problematic for a team that has seen its offense average that many points per game only once since the league expanded to a 16-game schedule in 1978.

Of course, it is the players and not the coach (or so we’ve been told) that make a defense work (except when it is Jim O’Neil and everything is his fault), and Horton shared some ideas on how he we will make better use of the talent on the roster – starting with the run defense.

“We have to teach fundamentals. We want to be a very sound defense but very aggressive,” Horton said. “Every guy will have a job. I’m talking to the coaches, too. We need everybody, every Cleveland Brown to do their job. It’s as simple as that, to do your job. Is your job going to be to win the game sometimes when it is called? Yes, it is. We need you to do your job.”

Speaking of doing your job, Horton said he plans to talk to linebackers Paul Kruger and Barkevious Mingo in an attempt to get them back on track in chasing down opposing quarterbacks.

“We have to be able to give (Paul) a Batman to his Robin or a Robin to his Batman, whoever he wants to be in the equation. We have to give him help on the other side,” Horton said. “We will give him every opportunity to like the defense, to rush. He is going to rush so I want him to stay in and rush. He will get his opportunities.

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“I see (Barkevious) hopefully as a play-making member of our defense. Where he will line up, I don’t know yet. It depends on what he can handle for us. Hopefully, he will come in and say, ‘I embrace what you are trying to do with me, and I’ll do whatever you ask me to do.’ We have to do something to utilize his God-given ability.”

The one thing that Horton has going in his favor is that there are still a handful of players on the roster from his last stay in town, which should help with installing the new defense. He is also familiar with the challenge facing the team, so he can hopefully bring a little less bravado and a little more success this time around.

“I don’t want to try to say it’s a simple answer. ‘If we do this, we’ll be there.’ We have work to do. I think the players understand that,” he said. When you talk about Paul (Kruger) being frustrated, when Joe (Haden) missed X-amount of games, with Tashaun (Gipson) being a free agent, there are a lot of moving pieces and we will be fluid, but whichever 53 we end up with, we are going to make a heck of a run at winning games and winning our division.

“Now, are we going to win our division this year? I don’t know if we are or not, but we are going to give them hell.”

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